


Scent

by sensitivebore



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-22
Updated: 2013-01-22
Packaged: 2017-11-26 11:22:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/649994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sensitivebore/pseuds/sensitivebore
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carson and Hughes, and the scent of him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scent

She thought for a brief time that it was like a library — quality paper and leather bindings and the linen of end-papers — with something undefinable, something else misting over it all.

Now she thinks it is like what an Oriental garden must be, though she has never been to the Orient, has never walked the beautiful curving bridges of Japan, has never seen the pagodas of China. Elsie imagines, though, she imagines those beautifully sculpted gardens must intoxicate the senses with the scent of strong woods, musky blossoms, the cold clean marble of tea-house floors. Exotic but natural and organic, with everything layering perfectly with everything else, nothing fighting for attention.

She has sat next to him for ten years.

For ten years she has sat by him at the dining table, at his desk, at her fireplace. She has breathed in this man over and over again, he has been as far as the other side of the great room and she could smell him, he has been as close as a finger-breadth from her mouth and she could single out every note of his bouquet. They have stood side-by-side, perfectly aligned, in front of this house day after day to greet visitors, guests, the family. The warm spring breezes and the biting winter winds always bring him to her, every time. Even when it's gale force outside and one would think the trees whipping and the clouds rolling and rain just on the horizon would blot everything out, it comes to her.

Elsie breathes him in now, deeply, closes her eyes.

For ten years she has walked with him.

They have trod these halls back and forth, to and from their respective offices, their bedrooms, this room, that room, and they must pass one another a hundred times a day. During spring cleaning, fall, when the house is laden with the smell of lemon polish, soap, vinegar, she has but to inhale and he's there. Night after night, Mrs. Patmore turns out course after course of exquisite dinners, desserts, teas. The downstairs is a feast for the mind as the aromas from the kitchen wind around them, joints of beef roasting, soft bread rising, berries stewing, vanilla-laced cakes baking. And yet it is always him that lingers on her; he must be in her hair, her skin, her clothes by now. They have walked together over every square foot of this house.

She exhales.

Thinks that perhaps it is always his smell that stays with her because it is real, it is something of this house but also outside of it; it's something she can depend on. It's something that will be here tomorrow, and the next day, and the next. It is something beautiful that she can savor. Something she can afford.

She breathes in.

His arm is curving around her now and the fire is low and warm and there it is again, all of that beauty, that deep, dark, deliciousness, filling her, overwhelming her mind, smoothing out her edges.

She breathes out.

He tilts his head, looks at her questioningly. She clears her mind, smiles at him brightly. He pulls his arm back, has her wine glass in his hand now. Refills it for her.

"Are you all right, Mrs. Hughes?"

She leans back in her chair, rests her face on the wing.

It smells of everything good, everything solid, everything clean and strong and true.

Like everything in her life, it smells of him.

"Perfectly all right, Mr. Carson."

She breathes in.


End file.
